


A Yawning Emptiness

by maychorian



Series: Supernatural Shorts [20]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Horror, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt No Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-14 08:17:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19269322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maychorian/pseuds/maychorian
Summary: Written for a horror meme. Prompt: Dean can't stop eating.Originally posted to LJ on 3/8/10.





	A Yawning Emptiness

Dean orders a short stack for breakfast; Sam gets the oatmeal. It's lumpy here, warm and good. Sam asks the waitress for honey, pours it on, stirs it contemplatively. Smells delicious, thick and nourishing, just as he likes it. Then he glances up, sees that Dean's pancakes are already gone.  
  
Dean snags the waitress's sleeve as she passes on the way to serve someone else. "Hey, sweetheart, could I get one of those three-egg omelets? The kind with everything?"  
  
"Sure thing, sugar," she says easily, already moving on.  
  
Dean fidgets while he waits. Sam stares at him, slowly eating oatmeal. When the waitress brings the omelet, Dean asks for biscuits and gravy, side of sausage, toast, orange juice. He's already stuffing his face with the omelet, cheeks distended, words barely intelligible around mashed-up egg and cheese, green peppers and mushrooms. She jots everything down and heads to the counter.  
  
"Slow down, man," Sam says, faintly nauseated. "You'll choke."  
  
"M'just...really hungry..." Dean garbles, still eating and eating, a new bite poised in front of his lips while he swallows the last one, barely pausing to chew.  
  
It takes too long for the new order to come and Dean fidgets, his legs moving restlessly under the table, fingers drumming and drumming next to his empty plate. He pauses to rub a finger around the plate, looking for crumbs, but it's all but licked clean, so he goes back to drumming. Sam shoves his oatmeal aside, appetite gone, and Dean grabs it without asking, barely taking time for a spoon.  
  
Dean never eats oatmeal.  
  
"Dean..." Sam stretches his leg under the table, bumps Dean's endlessly tapping foot. "Dean, what's going on?"  
  
"M'hungry," Dean snaps, as much as he can with his mouth full of mushed oats and raisins. He glares at Sam to make up for the difference. "Just...hungry."  
  
The biscuits and gravy come. Dean asks for waffles, bacon, more pancakes, another omelet. The waitress writes it all down, nodding in a steady, unhurried bob, bob, bob, like a metronome, up and down, up and down, ticking away the seconds.  
  
A delayed reaction to Famine? Why now? Famine is dead, banished, whatever you call it. Not here. Sam looks around the diner, afraid that Dean's weird behavior might draw attention, but the few other patrons are bent over their food, their menus, their newspapers, their coffee, oblivious and uncaring.  
  
"Dean, stop. You're gonna make yourself sick."  
  
Dean just shakes his head, eating and eating. The waitress tops off his coffee and he grabs her wrist. "When does your lunch menu start? Can I bribe into starting a little earlier?"  
  
"No need for a bribe, shug," she says. "What d'you want?"  
  
Cheeseburger, fries, milkshake, side of beans, coleslaw, onion rings. Keep it comin', darlin'. She nods and goes.  
  
"Dean, stop!" Sam leans forward and tries to grab his hand. Dean dodges him, keeps eating, bits of food flying from his mouth, dripping on his shirt, his lap. The frantic sounds of eating are so loud, so loud.  
  
Sam's not annoyed anymore. He's scared.  
  
"Dean!"  
  
"Keep your pants on," Dean says around the food, only it sounds more like  _Keeb y'r panshon._  "If you want more, just ask."  
  
"I'm not hungry, Dean, and you shouldn't be either. Stop, man! Remember that guy with the exploded stomach?"

Dean whimpers, a tiny, frightened sound like a trapped animal, but he keeps eating. Sam can't stop him.   
  
The waitress is coming back with more food. Sam stands up, tries to block her with his body, stretching his arms out like a basketball player on the court. "Stop! Can't you see that something is wrong here?"  
  
She ducks away from him somehow, slipping through his grasp like water, like mercury, like poison. "No one leaves hungry, sir, that's our policy."  
  
Sam looks around, whipping his head desperately back and forth, hoping for support, but no one looks up, all so busy, so preoccupied. He hears Dean ordering more food, more drink, more, more, the waitress making little humming noises of agreement. Sam goes to the counter and tries to get the attention of the short-order cook behind the grill, tries to tell him to stop taking these orders, but the man ignores him, bent over his work.  
  
Dean groans, dropping one hand to hold his belly as he keeps shoveling in food with the other. There are bits of egg and pancake on the table around him, smears of syrup and yolk on his face, his sleeves. He takes a big bite of cheeseburger, pieces of lettuce and tomato squirting out and falling into his lap, ketchup and mustard smearing all around his mouth like clown makeup. He's in pain, but he can't stop eating.  
  
"So...hungry..."  
  
The waitress is moving back toward the counter, head down as she rips another page off her order notebook, inscribed with food, food, food. Sam grabs her shoulders, aware that he's holding too tight and not caring. "Stop! You gotta...you gotta stop!"  
  
She looks up at him, grinning, and her eyes are black. "No one leaves hungry, sugar."  
  
Sam tightens his fingers in her shoulders, gripping like claws, and looks around, sees every face lifted to look at him, black eyes and calm expressions, the patrons reading their newspapers and drinking their coffee, the cook behind the counter, the beat cop on the corner outside, black, black, black.  
  
"No one leaves hungry," they say in unison.  
  
Sam releases the waitresses shoulders and backs away. "Cas! Castiel!"  
  
"He can't hear you, sweetie. No one can hear you." The waitress advances toward him, reaches up to caress his cheek. "Dean's going home to where he belongs. We're just fattening him up before he gets there. Oh, we missed him. We all missed him so."  
  
Hands grab Sam's shoulders and arms, eight, ten, a dozen. They push him onto a stool beside the counter and hold him trapped like a bug under glass, black eyes all watching him, red lips all smiling.  
  
Dean is sobbing for breath around his food, still eating, eating, eating.  
  
"Stop!" Sam screams. "Just stop! Please! What do you want? What do you  _want_  from me?"  
  
The waitress smiles, long and thin and snakelike beneath her dead-black eyes. "You know what we want, sugar. Just one little word. One little word and it all ends."  
  
Sam looks across the diner, catches Dean's eyes, desperate, pleading, but he can't tell what for. Still he shoves the food in and chews, swallows, crying now with tears running down his cheeks and mingling with the smears on his face.   
  
The waitress pets Sam's cheek. "No one goes home hungry, darlin'. No one goes home hungry."  
  
Dean eats and eats and eats.


End file.
